Skating
by Safui
Summary: So this is based off of a roleplay between nick-holas-miller. and whosthatgirlits-jess. . Slightly tweaked just to make a bit more sense. We thought it'd be a cute idea for a fanfiction - (Yes we do own this plot line) Basically, this is set in the very early stages of Nick and Jess' relationship, taking place around Christmas. I hope you enoy!
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer : **

**We do not own New Girl or any of the characters mentioned in this piece**

**Enjoy :)**

"Jess, do we really need all this protective gear? We're going skating, not to North Korea." He says, adjusting the straps on his impossibly high ice-skates. As much as he hates any contact with the ice, or any form of cold, wet substance, seeing Jess' face light up every now and again makes his day just that bit better. Ever since they started their secret relationship, he'd found himself being a lot more relaxed, but not _so_ relaxed that his other roommates would suspect something. As for Jess, she tends to not be as dolled-up around him. Which, hopefully, was a sign she's getting more comfortable around him, as well as him around her. They'd always been that way, from day one, but this was different. It feels different.

"Safety first, Nick!" She says to him in regards to his retort about North Korea. "Safety first!" She chimes again, standing herself up from the cold bench, just a few feet from the opening of the indoor rink. Jess is cold, but she tries not to shiver.

He smiles over at her. As much as she looks not too far off from some kind of S.W.A.T member with her arm pads, he can't help but find her positively stunning in her festive green and red dress decorated with holly, tied at the back with some kind of sash. Her eyes are beaming back at him as she outstretches her arm to help him up. "Woah, God." He breathes, almost losing his balance on the razor-thin blades beneath his feet. "If I can't balance myself on carpet, then I really don't wanna know what I'm like on the ice." He huffs, allowing Jess to lead him out onto the huge white patch, littered with young children and their parents, freely gliding along without fail.

Jess laughs as she sees Nick fumbling to regain his balance. "You'll be fine! I'll hold your hand, yeah!" She gives him the brightest smile she can, hoping to show him that he was going to be alright. She then grabs his hand and begins to walk towards the rink. "Just remember: Toe pick! That'll stop you from falling over. It grips the ice so you can regain your balance. But don't worry. I've got ya, buddy!"

Feeling already like a six year old, Nick manages to get onto the ice, only slipping ever so slightly. Jess keeps her word by catching him by the elbow any time he looks like he's a goner. His biggest concern is that he will fall, taking Jess with him, and they'll both end up being stabbed by the treacherous blades of the ice skates. "Okay.. baby steps Miller." He mutters to himself, linked securely onto Jess' arm, proceeding to launch into miniature glides. After about ten minutes on the ice, Nick had learned one thing about himself. He cannot multitask. Repeatedly, Jess, having been skating since she was little, has it with ease. She tries endlessly to get him to do those romantic-movie-type montages on the ice to add essence to the night, much to her disappointment. Nick is thankful for his protective gear at this stage.

It isn't until about forty falls later that he finally manages to match the NASCAR-like speed Jess is going at _without_ cheating death from the children behind him.

"Hey look, I've got it!" He says happily, letting go of Jess' arm to test his new found skill. "Now we can practice all that romantic stuff." He smiles, grasping her hand in his, guiding her for a change. "Okay, what are the moves?"

She smiles at him. "Well, we can skate holding hands," she nods eagerly. "I've always wanted to do that, just holding hands and talking and skating," she giggles. She speeds off in front of him, doing a little twirl as she does, using her toe pick.

"Look at you go!" She says, twirling again to turn around and look at him. He is gliding on his own. Jess grins, proud of her teaching skills. "Lets see if you can keep up!" She accelerates a good ten more feet off ahead of him. She chortles as she sees him slowly begin to pick up speed too quickly and almost slapping off the ice. Again. "Come on, Nick! You can do it!"

* * *

**_Later that night._**

The rest of the night consists of Jess playfully stealing Nick's fries, exchanging cute, enthusiastic comments and looks and just general talking, like old times, before Nick realizes what time it is.  
"Crap. It's eleven fifteen. I told Schmidt I'd be working 'til eight. We better go." He says, stuffing the remainder of his hotdog into his mouth and helping Jess with her coat. Both of them pick up their pace as they walk back to Nick's car, pondering excuses they could come up with.

"We can say I had to take you to the emergency room, 'cause you.. you tripped! And you hurt your foot." He suggests, turning the key in the ignition. "Or would it seem suspicious that _I'd _have to take you? What about Cece? I'm interrogating myself over this. Jess, help." He turns to her. She doesn't seem even slightly phased by the situation, but seems more interested in just staring at Nick, with her goofy little grin.

"Or we could tell him that we are in love and I'm havin' your baby." She nods, obviously joking. "Kidding. But we could do the foot thing. I'm a good actress, watch this." "haaaaylp, Haaaaylp, mah foot mistah butlah! mah foot!" Jess, still on a high from the frenzy of the night, puts on a fake southern gone-with-the-wind style accent.

"Ta-da!" She says, twirling her hands around. "Lets just do that, we could say Cece was busy. She'll cover for us. She knows we're being scandalous~"

"Okay, but without the accent." He emphasises. "Maybe Schmidt'll be asleep by the time we get home. He's got a weird sleeping ritual where he literally cries himself to sleep sometimes." The topic of sleep leads Nick to wonder about his own sleeping arrangements. Now that they're kind of a couple. Does that mean they shared beds now? And more importantly, would they have to sneak back to their own rooms at 5am before they got caught? Bringing it up seemed a bit far-fetched, seeing as they only started being, as Jess put 'scandalous.' But at the same time, he has to sleep and so does she. He turns to face her, unsure of how he'd ask the question. "So Jess. What.. Or, where are we sleeping tonight?"


	2. Chapter 2

"We could sleep in my room," she says casually. "Or we could not sleep in my room, wah wah," she says with a not-too-sly wink. She sounds like a parent from the Peanuts. Jess is being forward, mostly because they hadn't… ahem, yet. But she wants to. She is eager to take that next step in their relationship. They are a full blown couple now, so why not do the fun stuff couples do?

Nick grins, keeping his eyes on the road. "Jessica Day you have work tomorrow." He chimes. "You want to sabotage your career just to get rid of your twirliness? I'm not complaining of course." He feels her staring him down, taking pride in the glimmer of frustration he senses in it. He swiftly meets her eyes with his, before he finishes with his own lop-sided wink.

When they pull up to the apartment, she can feel herself growing more and more nervous. Hopefully no one would be awake. As they enter, Schmidt gives them the third degree. "And where were you two crazy kids?" He asks them with a raised eyebrow. Jess freezes. "uhhhh we were uhhh getting my foot fixed." She says with a nod. She elbows nick in a "back me up" measure.

Schmidt looks at him with a furrowed brow and a suspicious expression painted across his face. "D-ah, what she's trying to say is, I took her to the ER 'cause her foot is messed up pretty bad. Bruising and stuff. They gave her medication, you know how it is. Busy this time of year." He stammers as coolly as he can. "Actually, I-uh- gotta help her. W-with the bandages and stuff." He wraps an arm around her making it look like he's supporting her and turns in the direction of her bedroom. "I'll see you in the morning, Schmidtty!" Leaving their still confused roommate alone in the hallway, the two make their way to Jess' bedroom, with Jess still fake-limping.

When they rush into her room, she closes the door and giggles. "Oh my god, we barely got away with it. You did such a good job!" she puts her hands on Nick's cheeks and lays a big kiss on his lips, much to his approval. With Jess in a state of euphoria, getting in any words wasn't short of drawing blood from a stone. So he just stands facing her, allowing her to express her restlessness. Not your typical pre-sex routine. Especially since she's still wearing the holly sash.

"Lets do this thang," Jess makes a funny nose and shoots out her pointer and ring fingers, channeling hand-guns.

* * *

Nick wakes up to find Jess wrapped snugly around him, still only dressed in his boxer shorts and her, in what he hoped, were loose fitting pajama pants and the shirt he'd had on the day before. Her hair is thrown in all directions around her face. _Morning after hair_. He grins , gently stroking it so as not to wake her. His only concern now was how he was going to leave her room without being seen. The light shining through her translucent curtains indicate that it can't be too early. Eight or nine at best.

"Hey, Jess." he mumbles, shaking her gently. "Come on, we overslept."

"What? Huh?" she shoots up "Oh my god what time is it?" She checks her alarm, 9:07am. "I have work in an hour! I gotta go! I gotta go!" She runs out of the room, grabbing a dress and pantyhose, getting half way down the hall before turning on her heel running back. "I almost forgot something!" She ran over to Nick and gave him a quick kiss on the lips. "Shoot! Shoot!" She ran back out giving a quick greeting and to Schmidt and Winston "Hi Minston! Hi Schwit!" she says, still half asleep.

"Did Nick just come out of your room?" He says with a wicked smile. She groans and then sighs. "No, he did not come out of my room! And if he did, it was because I was borrowing his… Laptop!" She says with a nod. "I was borrowing his laptop. He was probably going to retrieve it," she says picking up her clothes, hiding nick's shirt underneath her pajama pants. "Is that Nick's shirt?" he asked, nosily. "No. It's mine," she said storming out, nervous their cover was just blown.

Nick, wary of his lingering roommates, waits at Jess' door peering out. His bedroom is just across the hall. He could make it, right? Still dazed from the energetic kiss from Jess, he creaks open the door further. The floors look shinier than usual. "Schmidt must have waxed 'em." He sighs, taking care not to slip and hurt is back again.

"_Did she call you Minston_?" He hears grumbling from where he stands, and as he does, he freezes on the spot.

"_Yeah man, but she called you Schwit._"

"_Damn girls and their sleep patterns_."

He senses them getting closer and lunges forward. Turning the doorknob as quickly as he can, he hears the sounds of shiny, patent leather shoes behind him. "Oh. Did you just come out of Jess'-" "Nope I have no idea what you're talking about!" He replies, ignoring Schmidt's interrogating expression. Quickly, he darts into his room, sits on his bed and takes his head in his hands. Sneaking around was becoming a lot harder with their encounters with Schmidt. Winston was easy to get around. He probably knows. Winston always seems to know these things. But, not wanting to have the awkward conversation about the 'loft dynamic' he decides that he'd just stay locked in his room 'til Jess came home. In eight hours.


	3. Chapter 3

Nick finally caves in twenty minutes into his hideout. He hasn't eaten since the night before and by now, he's starving. He'd ran through every possible scenario in his head in case Schmidt asked again and came up with a plausible response to each. Confidentally, he leaves his room, plastering on a 'casual Nick Miller expression' as he enters the kitchen.

"Hey guys." He says, quite low key and flicks the kettle on. When he turns around, he's surprised to find that only Winston is present, sipping on a beer.

"You guys know how loud you were last night, right?"

Nick's eyes widen. "Huh?" He flusters with the coffee maker, beginning to silently panic while keeping a cool composure.

"Schmidt sleeps like a rock. Me on the other hand, not so much."

"And?"

"And I heard you."

"Heard what?" He immediately knows he's done for.

"Don't play dumb with me man, I've heard you and Jess seperately one time too many. Both of you together? Well that's like pairing a jackhammer paired with a sickly coyote with a throat problem."

"Are you calling Jess' sex response similar to a sickly coyote?"

Winston chuckles, raising his beer with his pointer finger aimed at Nick.

"Oh no man, I'm calling _you_ a sickly coyote."

Nick makes his turtle face and takes his cup, raising his free hand defensively.

"I dunno what you're talkin' about man." He utters as he walks back to his room and shuts the door. "Dammit."

* * *

Jess had spent five hours of her day teaching, and the other three worrying about Schmidt and Winston figuring out about her relationship with Nick. After an unnerving text she received from Nick

_Jess, Winston knows. Sex sounds._ she was fretting about it to the highest degree.

As soon as she is out of class, she gives Nick a ring. It rings three times before he picks it up. Before he can say anything she screams:

"We can't have them knowing, they're going to crucify us! Schmidt's going to hate me, he's gonna call me a devil woman!"

"Well hello to you too." He responds.

"Listen okay, Winston knows. Not Schmidt. And I can threaten Winston into not telling Schmidt, but I feel like that'd backfire. For now, we'll just see what happens, and if he calls you 'devil woman' then fine, you're my devil woman, not his." He winces. "That sounded a lot more romantic in my head. Just come home and act as you normally would. If Schmidt asks, we gotta tell him. We can't sneak around our roommates too much longer, they're gonna know something's up."

Jess smiles and nods as though Nick can see her. When she realizes he couldn't, she fumbles for words. "Right, yeah, sure we can do that. Just act as naturally as possible." She grinned.

"We can do that. We can do it!" She says emphatically, pumping a fist into the air. She waits a moment before getting nervous again. "…I don't think I can do this, Nick. I can't do this, Nick. They know, they're gonna know. They're gonna curse us. What are we going to do!"

"Schmidt's Jewish, he doesn't believe in hell." Nick balances the phone between his shoulder and his ear as he searches for a pair of shoes. "You're gonna be fine Jess. Just don't sing about how normal you're being and you should be fine. Listen I'm gonna come pick you up so we can talk alone. I also noticed your car still parked out front so I'm assuming you fled the apartment without your keys." He finds a pair, places the phone on the bed and puts it on loudspeaker, while scrambling with his laces.

"Nick! I'm not gonna sing about how we're not sleeping together! I promise. I'm just… ugh. I'm just stressing out, man. This whole thing is stressing me out!" She gives a disheartened laugh. "Nick, I really like you. And I really like what we have. And I really like that we're totally comfortable with each other. Like, I could totally burp in front of you. That's how comfortable I am. But this sneaking around business, while key to our survival is stressing me out." She shakes her head. "I'm glad you're coming to pick me up, though. I missed ya!"

"Okay calm down. I'll be there in ten minutes, meet me outside." He hangs up the phone at her response and makes his way through the empty loft down to his car.

The entire journey he thinks of ways they can tackle their new-found problem. Jess would probably be of little help, now that she had gone into complete panic mode. Arriving at the steps to the school, he notices her immediately. Even with half of her makeup kind of smudged under her eyes and her loose, messy ponytail, she still looks beautiful to him.

"Get in you clown!" He smiles up at her, signalling her to come down from behind the window.

"You callin' me a clown!? Are you callin' me a clown!?" She winks and hops in the car, giving him a kiss. Jess smiles at him. "I missed ya, Nick, ol' to?" She asks, hoping for _anywhere_ but the loft. "How about we go get some coffee? I need some caffeine. Avoiding the guys this morning spared me some coffee goodness." she says with a frown, wiping her forehead and re-arranging her hair.

"Actually I was thinking we should go back home. We really need to talk to Winston about this." He says. He places a hand on her shoulder, noticing the panic in her expression. "Don't worry. He won't 'summon us to the depths of hell' for liking each other." He tries to calm her down by turning on the stereo, adjusting it to find one of her favourite 'old school' stations. "We can hang out here for a moment though, if you want."

"No, it's fine. Time to meet our maker!" She says with a stifled laugh. "I'm just kidding. I know Winston won't say anything, but if Schmidt finds out, our gooses are cooked." She sighs and shakes her head. "Maybe I'll bake cupcakes tonight for Winston. Sort of like hush money, but better." She giggles. "More calories."

"Well I'm glad you feel that way, Jess, 'cause the first thing I'm gonna do when the guys get over it, is make you feel like the only girl in the loft. And yes I am aware I just said that and I am aware that you are already the only girl in the loft. I'm not good at being romantic okay. Is it hot in here? It's definitely hot in here." He goes to turn down the air-conditioning in the car, only to realize that it was already as low as it would go. "L.A weather, huh?" _Come on man, a second ago you were excited to tell the guys. What. Are. You. Doing. _He turns down the last few streets before the loft is in sight. "So.. how was work? Did I ask that already? I asked that already didn't I?"

"Nick, you're nervous. You're nervous aren't you. Oh my gosh you're nervous that means I should be nervous? Should I be nervous? Oh God, I should be nervous. Work was good. Work was work. Work is always work. I miss my babies.. OH GOD NICK I'M NERVOUS." Jess throws her head back onto the headrest and sinks back into her seat, almost hyperventilating. She clenches her fists, trying to contain herself. "Do you understand, Nick? OUR GEESE ARE COOKED. THEY ARE COOKED IN A LOVELY STIR FRY. WE CANNOT TELL THEM." Jess is having a mini-panic attack. She restrains herself from letting tears spill, wary of keeping whatever composure she has left in her.

He decides at this point, that driving would be a good catalyst for their motivation. Immediately, he pulls out from his, badly parked, position and out onto the road. Nick clenches his teeth, knowing that now the both of them have lost control of their sanity.

"No okay, look. There's a huge pileup of traffic ahead. We can use that to calm down."

He forces a, somewhat terrifying smile, trying to restore whatever color she has left in her, usually rosy cheeks.

"We're gonna tell them and it's gonna be great. Think of all the.. romance.. we can show once they know!" Unfortunately, the 'pile-up' Nick had pointed out begins moving a lot more swiftly than either of them would have liked. In fact, it only takes ten minutes for them to get through it before they meet another.

The car slows down. Nick feels beads of sweat forming on his forehead. He can see their front window from where they're stopped and tries, but to no avail, to not concentrate on the events that would soon ensue.

"Okay. Okay. Jess, talk to me. Tell me something about puppies, or some new cupcake recipe you discovered recently."

"I found blue velvet cupcakes and—" Jess, being unable to cope with the stress, for fear they were now going to kick her out of the loft undoes her seat belt and hops out of the car, running in the opposite direction.

"I'm weaaaak!" she yells as she hurls herself down the street. She runs about half way down the block before she trips and falls. "OW!" she yells. "I'm okay!" she says before she gets back up and keeps running.

"I'm weak!" she yells again, not breaking her pace.

"Jess?!" Nick shrieks after her. He quickly finds his way in around the traffic and pulls himself up onto the sidewalk. "Look, you made me illegally park!" Despite the fact she probably can't hear him anymore. He darts after her, not wanting to return home without a Jess. "What is this accomplishing?!" Thank God they live in such a busy area, because by the time she's in his vision again, she's stopped waiting at an intersection, clustered with cars. He jogs up to her, out of breath. "Jess." he practically drinks the air as he speaks. "I know it's scary, but we gotta do it. Otherwise we'll just have them find out the next time we.. you know. And then we'll regret it more." He drops his head down towards his chest and puts his hands on her shoulders, forcing her to look him straight in the eyes. "Trust me on this."

Jess starts to breath heavily. "Oh my god it's like a fat man is sitting on my lungs," she puts her hands on her knees, trying to catch her breath.

"I am so out of shape. we have to start running. I have to start running again."

She sighs and looks up at him, finally catching her breath. "I know. Fine, we can do this." she sighs, and hugs him. "Sorry I made you illegally park, by the way."

"It's fine but if my car's towed, we're walking." He smiles, wrapping his arm around her as they walk back to his car.

* * *

The rest of the drive to the loft only took five minutes. Nick had luckily escaped with only a $50 parking ticket and an apology kiss from Jess. They take the stairs, procrastinating in whatever ways they can. He can feel her trembling once they approach the final flight. "Don't pass out on me okay?" Slowly, the two walk down the rest of the hallway. It feels like a horror movie. Like they're about to approach the basement in a haunted house and are expecting to find a massacre of dead bodies from the 1800s. It's only their loft, but it's terrifying. "Okay, let's do this, Jess." He gets his key from his pocket, giving her one last look, met by her almost teary eyes. He winces at her obviously forced smile back at him and inserts the key into the door, waiting for the click of the door unlatching. "After you." He directs, holding the door open for her.


End file.
